The Men’s Concentration Camp
Here the description of the men’s concentration camp appears necessary as there is a connection with the later established women’s concentration camp. Besides the fact that the female detail fell under the same camp commander, there was also contact between both groups of prisoners. Furthermore, the presence of the women’s concentration camp changed the working conditions of the prisoners in the men’s concentration camp.
The operation of both concentration camps was not isolated from the community. The camps were no secret. The fact was that maintenance of the equipment for the concentration camps required an infrastructure, for example power and water supply and waste disposal within the abbey walls. Contact with the outside world was therefore necessary. And the gate of the monastery was always open during daytime. The population was not forbidden to enter the premises. On Sundays, part of the village community attended church services in the convent church. So, neither the men’s nor the women’s concentration camp was hidden from public view. Additionally, for two years the space underneath the abbey archway was used for taking the roll call of the female prisoners’ detail, which brought the presence of the women’s concentration camp under the general attention of the local inhabitants.
Use was also made of service industries, such as restaurants which were frequented by the SS security guards. This connected officials of the internal camp system to the social outer world.
It is uncertain whose idea it was to establish a concentration camp at the monastery of St. Lambrecht, which was managed as an SS estate. The establishment of the settlement1This settlement still exists and is generally known under the name of Stiftssiedlung (monastery settlement). in Eben, a part of the St. Lambrecht territory, which had begun already in July 1941, certainly played a part in the employment of camp prisoners. Seiler suspects that the delayed employment of these prisoners had to do with the establishment of the Wirtschaftsverwaltungshauptamt (WVHA).2Business Administration Main Office of the SS. Delay was also caused by the incorporation of the ‘inspection of the concentration camps’ in the WVHA. In any case from that moment onwards, putting prisoners to work on agricultural jobs at SS estates was no longer exceptional.3The first Styrian sub camp of Mauthausen was already established in Bretstein in the summer of 1941. An average of 80 prisoners were recruited to care for the fowl and sheep and for the construction of a road for freight transport. This sub camp of Mauthausen was dissolved on 30-09-1943 (Maršálek 1995, p. 39).
On 12 May 1942 the first prisoners’ detail intended for St. Lambrecht was put together in the concentration camp at Dachau. The detail arrived there the next day. According to several sources4AMM, B 44/ 5; DA 23.387; Rabitsch 1967, p. 111. the convoy consisted of between eighty and a hundred men. A few weeks later another convoy from Dachau followed and about eighteen prisoners were taken to Schloss Lind, a property of the former monastery.5DA, A 499/ 32.788. Allegedly an elder German prisoner died of an illness and was buried at the Neumarkt graveyard (DA A 1562/ 34.814; A 1562/ 34.815). However, investigation of the diocesan archive Graz (checking the lists of the deceased) gave no information. This sub camp, which just as St. Lambrecht/males at first also fell under the concentration camp Dachau and later under Mauthausen, will not be entered into here. The following literature is referred to: Rabitsch 1967; Seiler 1994; Seiler, Dietmar. In: A.E.I.O.U., drauβt bist du, drauβt bist du noch lange nicht. Das andere Heimatmuseum. 1. Abteilung; o.S. 1996; Farkas, Anita: Kollektives Gedächtnis und Erinnerungsarbeit in der Steiermark. Auf den Spuren der Erinnerung an die Konzentrationslager Aflenz, Peggau und Schloβ Lind. Phil. Diplomarbeit, Klagenfurt 2001.
The group of male prisoners at the concentration camp St. Lambrecht consisted of different nationalities. The Poles initially formed the greater majority. There were also several Germans, some Austrians and Yugoslavs imprisoned there. They found accommodation on the top floor of an outbuilding overlooking the west,6 This was the former gymnasium of the choristers’ convent, that had been dissolved in 1932. The room had already been barred and was accessible only by a single staircase. with garages underneath. The prisoners first had to organise the accommodation for themselves and for some twenty guards.
By separating a space on the grounds of the prisoners’ wing, a small sick bay was created, which from autumn of 1942 onward was manned by a Slovenian physician. Next to the sick bay, the prisoners organised a workshop where they carried out repairs.7See Seiler 1994, p. 28 f.
The security guards were accommodated on the ground floor of the monastery building. The camp commandant’s room was in the present private chapel next to the church. The Sicherheitsdienst (SD) moved into the adjoining rooms. The doors were kept closed.8PA, interview Messnarz-Günter, Margarete, 13-09-2002.
The employment of the prisoners first began with agricultural activities and then they were forced to work on the construction of the settlement in Eben, including waterworks, canalisation and a purification plant. During this hard labour the prisoners were severely mistreated. However, this soon came to an end, apparently because it was thought important that the work should proceed quickly.9See Nischelwitzer 1988, p. 60.
Lore Kröll, former head housekeeper, evaluates the building of a settlement at St. Lambrecht as follows:
‘This new settlement is a good development, brought about by [the new rulers using camp prisoners; author’s remark]. Nowadays the population is glad to have this in St. Lambrecht.’10PA, interview Kröll, Lore, 18-11-2002.
The building supervisor was the young architect SS-Untersturmführer11Second lieutenant. Herbert Goschin,12Goschin lived in a room next to the rooms of Kröll and Pfeiffer on the upper floor of the abbey wing. A house was under construction for him in St. Lambrecht, but he never lived there as he had been dismissed prior to completion (PA, interview Messnarz-Günter, Margarete, 13-09-2002; interview Kröll, Lore, 18-11-2002; interview Hoogers-Elbertsen, Jans, 16-10-2002). who had been sent to St. Lambrecht by the WVHA in July 1942. The prisoners developed a good relationship with this SS-Untersturmführer. He was the one who warned the prisoners about eavesdropping when a new group of guards arrived. The leader of this building detail originated from Upper-Silesia and could speak the Slavonic languages. The Czech, Polish and Yugoslavian prisoners had until then been able to communicate freely with each other in their languages. Collective and individual punishments increased in number. Furthermore, from 20 November 1942 onwards, when St. Lambrecht became a sub camp of the Mauthausen concentration camp, a few Poles were transferred to the latter camp, something which may be called unusual.13The sub camps St. Lambrecht and Schloss Lind were taken over by the Mauthausen main camp from 20 November 1942. These actions must be ascribed to the Silesian leader of the building detail who informed the guards of the content of the conversations between the prisoners.14See Seiler 1994, p. 34.
SS-Hauptscharführer Ernst Angerer soon replaced15See Seiler 1994, p. 29 the first camp commandant Remle.16AMM, Materialsammlung Lauritsch: DA, schriftlicher Bericht von Jan Kosinski, 20. 9. 1987. According to statements by prisoners Angerer ‘was no brute, no murderer. He was basically different from the others. The forced labour was thus rendered relatively bearable.’17Nischelwitzer 1988, p. 60. Angerer befriended a girl who had been ordered to work in the dynamite factory at Weissenbach near St. Lambrecht, as part of the Arbeitsdienst. In October 1942 he was ‘replaced because of a too liberal leadership of the forced labour at St. Lambrecht’ and sentenced by an SS law court because of ‘favouring prisoners’.18See Nischelwitzer 1988, p. 60. A great number of female conscripts from Slovenian Celje had been accommodated in the boarding houses in the municipality St. Lambrecht. Jagoschütz seems to link the transference of the camp commander to the relationship with a girl (see Jagoschütz 1990, p. 89. PA, interview Messnarz-Günter, Margarete, 13-09-2002).
In the abbey kitchen mentioned earlier, a prisoner called Gustav Mayer19His name also exists on the transport list from Dachau of 12-5-1942 (DA, 23.387). cooked for the prisoners’ group that was made up of various nationalities. The prisoners received the same food every day: white cabbage, potatoes and tinned meat. When there were enough vegetables from the convent garden available, these supplemented their diet. Breakfast consisted of milk diluted with water or coffee and a piece of bread.20PA, interview Messnarz-Günter, Margarete, 13-09-2002. The bread had to be weighed by Messnarz-Günter. She doesn’t remember the amount per inmate. There was a kitchen range in the middle of the kitchen. At one side of the range a female cook, assisted by a kitchen help, cooked for the roughly thirty members of the civilian staff then at the SS estate. The civilian staff used this opportunity to secretly push leftovers of the kitchen ingredients across the range to the prison cook. Besides the kitchen help Margarete Messnarz-Günter, who had been ordered to work at St. Lambrecht within the framework of the RAD on 1 February 1942, three Yugoslavian girls and a female cook called Anna worked there.21PA, letter from Messnarz-Günter, Margarete, of 02-09-2002. The Yugoslavian kitchen-helps were often switched. Anna was an inhabitant of St. Lambrecht, whose surname regrettably could not be discovered. She had a room in the abbey but used to sleep at home now and then (PA, interview Messnarz-Günter, Margarete, 13-09-2002). Anna was very popular with the prisoners as well as with head housekeeper Kröll. She supported the prisoners at every opportunity, for example, by slipping them food.22PA, interview Messnarz-Günter, Margarete, 13-09-2002. She wrote letters for the prisoner Hubert Henkel23His name figures on the list of the first transport of prisoners from Dachau of 12-5-1942 (DA, 23.387). from Munich and then smuggled the letters out of the camp.
An SS man guarded the male prisoners at work in the kitchen until they were replaced by the female prisoners in 1943.24PA, letter from Messnarz-Günter, Margarete, of 02-09-2002 In a room next to the kitchen, camp secretary Ludwig Lach25Ludwig Lach was born in Graz on 06-10-1910 (prisoner registration Nr. 14888). After being sent back to Mauthausen he was transferred to the Eisenerz concentration camp on 13 July 1943, and released on 4 May 1944 (AMM Y 36, Häftlingszugangsbuch der politischen Abteilung [prisoners’ book of the political department]). In the Eisenerz concentration camp Lach had the job of Lagerälteste (senior camp prisoner). There he allegedly had protected Jehovah’s Witnesses against reprisals by the camp commander (interview Otrebski, 2000). Jan Ludwig Lach died in Salzburg in 1982 (information from the population registry). carried out his work. His job included the household administration, the registration forms and the menu, with information provided by Lore Kröll.26PA, interview Kröll, Lore, 18-11-2002. Furthermore it was his duty to set the table for the SS guard in another room next to the kitchen.27PA, interview Messnarz-Günter, Margarete, 13-09-2002.
Ludwig Lach succeeded in repeatedly receiving visits from his wife from Graz. When the SS guard discovered these forbidden meetings in the spring of 1943, ‘he received a proper thrashing’.28PA, interview Kröll, Lore, 18-11-2002. Subsequently Lach was returned to the Mauthausen concentration camp. He was sent to the sub camp Eisenerz, from where he was released in 1944.
In November 1942 the concentration camp at St. Lambrecht came under the administration of the Mauthausen head camp. This involved a total replacement of the guards; the staff at St. Lambrecht was replaced by personnel that had come from Mauthausen. SS-Hauptscharführer Heinrich Schöller became the new camp commander.29Heinrich Schöller, born 16-07 or 16-06-1881. The Christian name of Heinz found in the Friedensplanübersicht (Summary of peace plan) of Mauthausen concentration camp, corresponds with the shortened form of the name Heinrich. Schöller’s NS membership number was 204.733. See BArch, (former BDC) SSD, Personalakten Schöller, Heinrich; BArch Ludwigsburg, BALB: B 162 AR 6901589 Bd. II, S. 368 und 373.
With his arrival the atmosphere worsened, and the camp punishments normally meted out at Mauthausen were also introduced at St. Lambrecht. Margarete Messnarz-Günter remembered the maltreatments she had seen for herself:
‘From the beginning they beat prisoners savagely! We stood there and watched. If anybody had protested or had done something they struck! We then complained to Mr Reiner or to Erhart: “We can’t bear to watch it! We don’t want to witness this!” There were a few brutal guards, they were so cruel. There were always two or three like that.’30PA, interview Messnarz-Günter, Margarete, 13-09-2002.
This shows that the memories of the civilian staff corresponded with those of the former prisoners. Josef Nischelwitzer, a former political prisoner from Carinthia, reports that after the replacement of the guards by the new guarding command31The frequent exchange of the SS security staff was above all because the wounded and men no longer fit for the war were transferred to St. Lambrecht to recuperate (PA, interview Messnarz-Günter, Margarete, 13-09-2002). from Mauthausen camp punishments like Bock and ‘tree’ were introduced at St. Lambrecht. With Bock ‘the victim had to lie down on a bench and was given 25 strokes of the cane on his bottom. The ‘tree’ was when the prisoner was hung from a bunk bed by his arms which were bound at his back, his body thus hanging free in space. The pain of this torture could lead to unconsciousness.32See Seiler 1994, p. 33; Nischelwitzer 1988, p. 62 f.
Another torture used was when ‘they were hung without support for their feet and with their head leaning backwards. And with a constant drip of water on their head. Like a dripping tap. Drip, drip. drip. Always on his forehead, until he went mad.’33PA, interview Messnarz-Günter, Margarete, 13-09-2002.
The most dreaded punishment, causing great terror, was returning the prisoner to the Mauthausen main camp. This stood for an immediate life threat because it was very likely the victim would not survive until the evening.
Thus, on 29 June 1943 for the first time fourteen prisoners, among whom the Slovene physician-prisoner, were fetched and taken back to the Mauthausen concentration camp. At the parade ground in Mauthausen the dogs were set on them. Nine of them were killed by this attack. The wounded were transferred to the punishment group, where they died the next day. On 30 June the other prisoners at St. Lambrecht, more than eighty men, were transported to the Mauthausen head camp. There they were assigned to the punishment group at the sub camp Gusen, which was tantamount to a death sentence.34See Seiler 1994, p. 35 f.
The kitchen help Margarete Messnarz-Günter spoke of this event as the most terrible she had experienced in the course of her employment at St. Lambrecht.
Seiler suspects that the reason for the cruel murder of nearly the whole prisoners’ detail from St. Lambrecht, was the planned or merely discussed preparations to make their escape:
‘Through contacts with Slovenian women in enforced employment and also imprisoned partisans, the prisoners received information on Yugoslav partisan groups. It seems the idea of escaping and founding a resistance group in the surrounding forests had arisen from the discussions. It was however rejected because “in our region” help from the inhabitants could not be counted on. Nonetheless discussions about the possibilities are said to have broken out time and time again. Just before the return of the detail, the afore mentioned Silesian leader of the building detail had eavesdropped on a group of Poles at a discussion about preparations for their escape.’35Seiler 1994, p. 36 f.
Messnarz-Günter tells she had discovered how a Pole who had worked in the kitchen had betrayed them. ‘The prisoners especially wanted to go to Yugoslavia because there was already a partisan conflict which they had wanted to join. And now that has failed.’36PA, interview Messnarz-Günter, Margarete, 13-09-2002.
The female prisoners, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, also remembered the replacement of the whole prisoners’ detail and have felt this as a drastic and tragic experience. However, the reason was not suspected to be an escape attempt, but the betrayal of a planned attack on Schöller. An SS man, probably an emigrated German who understood the Polish language, allegedly had warned the commander of this.37According to information from Gerdina Huisman this was ‘the talk of the town’ (interview Huisman, Gerdina, 15-10-2002). This version would also better explain why a small group of prisoners had already been returned to Mauthausen concentration camp the day before the replacement of the whole pool of prisoners, and why the starved dogs were cruelly set against these men. The whole story just cannot be pieced together anymore. The fact remains that for most of these prisoners, returning them to Mauthausen resulted in their death.
For two days at the beginning of July 1943 there were no male prisoners at St. Lambrecht.38PA, interview Messnarz-Günter, Margarete, 13-09-2002. On 2 July a transport of 99 Spanish prisoners and a Polish imprisoned physician, Telesfer Jankowski, arrived. This man was later made responsible for the care of the female prisoners and partly also for the care of the civilian staff.39PA, interview Messnarz-Günter, Margarete, 13-09-2002.
After the defeat in the struggle against Franco, these ‘republican Spaniards’ had fled to France where they first had been imprisoned in camps and subsequently were deported to concentration camps. The new prisoners’ detail consisted mainly of skilled workers. Among them were bricklayers, decorators, roofers, carpenters, cabinetmakers, electricians, mechanics, a car welder, a tailor and a cobbler.
The prisoners worked at the ongoing building of the settlement in Eben and the Verwalter-villa. But they also made and repaired all the tools necessary on the SS estate. The choice of skilled workers in this regard was a logical one: when they arrived the women’s concentration camp already existed, and the female Bible Students took over much of the work done by male prisoners. Within the SS estate this included work in the kitchen, but also the cleaning jobs and partly the work in the market garden.
From July 1943 onward, there was no surveillance in the kitchen because the imprisoned female Jehovah’s Witnesses now had to cook for the male prisoners. Contact with the kitchen personnel only took place when food was fetched. Emilio Viana, one of these prisoners who was authorised for the transport of food, fell in love with the kitchen help Margarete Messnarz. He used to write letters to her, which he secretly sent to his beloved by means of Bible Student Ella Hempel, the prison cook. During one of these ‘smuggling actions’ an overseer discovered a letter. The prisoner was cruelly beaten. When the SS guard also wanted to punish the kitchen help, cook Anna prevented the attack and reported the incident to the Verwalter Erhart. Margarete Messnarz was sent to the Verwalter and was reprimanded. Prisoner Emilio Viana was sent back to the main camp at Mauthausen on 15 May 1944.40On 15 May 1944 it is stated that a prisoner was transferred from St. Lambrecht to the concentration camp Mauthausen, on 16 May 1944 the prisoner is transferred back to St. Lambrecht (see Seiler 1994, p. 39). It is still a mystery how he managed to be transferred back to St. Lambrecht the following day.
Anyhow, the consequence was that this prisoner was no longer used for transporting food and Bible Student Hempel no longer supported the smuggling of love letters.
At the beginning of 1944 the so-called Publikationsstelle Wien41Publication Centre Vienna. moved into the SS estate. The advance of the Red Army had made the location of this institute in Vienna insecure. The ‘evacuation’ of the voluminous material consisting of maps and books was a large-scale operation. Therefore, Wilfried Krallert, head of the institute, requested the authorities in Berlin to provide twenty extra camp prisoners for this work and four extra guards. The cartographers from the institute had to take over guarding the prisoners who were making bookshelves.42AMM, Materialsammlung Lauritsch: Korrespondenz Berlin – St. Lambrecht.
On 17 February there were 72 male prisoners at St. Lambrecht,43See Seiler 1994, p. 38 f. who, besides the building work, now also had to work for the Publikationsstelle. Having the prisoners doing other work delayed the progress of the building. This at least is what happened at the Verwalter-villa, which could therefore not be completed.
In March 1944 the SS-Wirtschafts- und Verwaltungshauptamt44Business Administration Main Office of the SS. promised that the requested prisoners would be transferred to St. Lambrecht. The assignment of more concentration camp prisoners took place on condition that ‘there would be no problems if the prisoners should be recalled’.45AMM, Materialsammlung Lauritsch: Korrespondenz Berlin – St. Lambrecht, Schriftstück vom 22. März 1944. This letter stated that returning the promised prisoners after about two months had to be considered. By the beginning of April 1944 eight camp prisoners were transferred from Mauthausen concentration camp to the labour camp at St. Lambrecht.
On 16 June 1944 SS-Obersturmführer Hachmeister as a staff member of the WVHA obeyed a command by Himmler demanding that eight of the prisoners who had been made available immediately be transferred to Mauthausen. A week later the eight prisoners went from St. Lambrecht to Mauthausen. After hardly a month this same number of prisoners was again transferred from the main camp to St. Lambrecht. Thus, the management of the ‘alternative place St. Lambrecht’ lent force to their demand to have the disposition of cheap labour of prisoners for ‘duties of great military interest’.46AMM, Materialsammlung Lauritsch: Korrespondenz Berlin – St. Lambrecht, Schriftstück vom 4. Juli 1944. The information on the transfers of prisoners has been taken from the list in Seiler 1994, p. 38. They stem from the transport lists of the collection Freund/Perz, D-Mau 4.
Returning two prisoners to the Mauthausen main camp, one on 24 May and one on 18 October 1944 was in all likelihood meant as punishment. The last change in the prisoner population at St. Lambrecht occurred on 19 October 1944 when a prisoner was transferred from the Gusen concentration camp to the Styrian sub camp of Mauthausen.47See Seiler 1994, p. 38.
It is a fact that living conditions, despite harassment,48For example, the inmates had to crawl on their bellies on the Abbey courtyard (interview Hoogers-Elbertsen, Jans, 16-10-2002). were better than in the main Mauthausen camp. The prisoners were not starved, although the food was insufficient for the men who had to perform hard physical labour. All the ‘prisoners were emaciated’.49PA, interview Messnarz-Günter, Margarete, 13-09-2002. The prisoners’ diet will be dealt with in the next chapter.
Clothing and accommodation too were better than in the main camp, but there is certainly no way it could be said that conditions were humane. It is a fact that the prisoners were used as labour slaves for all kinds of work for the benefit of the ‘Reich’. Even Erhart didn’t shrink back from using the skills of the prisoners. For example, prisoners carried out repairs on the electricity at his house in St. Lambrecht.50StiA, book presentation Seiler 12-01-1994, opinion of Ingeborg Kalousek (née Erhart).
The work of the male prisoners was sometimes combined with that of the imprisoned female Bible Students. Both male and female prisoners worked together at the afforestation work, the men digging the holes for the young trees and the women placing the trees. Of course, conversations arose between the two groups of prisoners. This was forbidden, to be sure, but ‘the two SS guards couldn’t be everywhere at the same time!’51PA, interview Huisman, Gerdina, 15-10-2002.
Additionally, prisoners in the vegetable garden worked together with a great number of imprisoned women. Two male prisoners also worked in the adjacent Alexanderhof, the stables.
Contact grew between the Spanish prisoners and the female Bible Students within the former convent. These contacts, as well as liberation in May 1945, are the subject of the next chapter.
Chapter 4 – The Concentration Camp for Women at St. Lambrecht →